March 30, 2023

I wish my computer cursor was this lively

Figma has tight animations to show off new features. Dig. And yay for hanging punctuation among oodles of other improvements.

figma.com

A panel for Bartlett Pears showing off new features for the design tool Figma

March 28, 2023

Simple Mortgage Calculator

Trying to answer the simple question of how much house can we afford is made difficult by awful search engines. Shawn Hickman made this spreadsheet for non-financial experts and it looks quite good and worth the price. His overview video provides insight.

sofahq.gumroad.com

Screenshot of a simple mortgage calculator spreadsheet

The Magical Musical Thing

David Hilowitz explores the 70’s toy electronic instrument from Mattel and speaks to the creator. We had one of these growing up and it was indeed a bit magical. / via Chuck Jordan

spectrecollie.com

Magical Musical Thing

March 27, 2023

John Gruber on Wavelength

His post describes a new app for group chat, built on privacy and fortified with (deep breath) A.I. So good he’s on board and makes a compelling case as to why.

daringfireball.net

Wave icon

Luis Barragán

Was a Mexican architect and engineer. The places he designed celebrate form and color. This foundation catalogs his life and work. / via Richard Perez in a roundabout way

barragan-foundation.org

Luis Barragan architecture

Chris Ware shares his day and process

Oh this video is gooooood. “A book itself is sort of the perfect metaphor for a human being. It’s got a front and a back. It’s got a spine, and it’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.”

youtu.be

Man drawing a comic

March 25, 2023

Top 100 3D vehicle renders of 4,280 submissions

Clinton Jones organizes and curates these render challenges and they’re really great. Now I’m going through older challenges thanks to a collection of links on MetaFilter.

youtu.be

Futuristic 3d render of a pimped out Mustang in a race

March 22, 2023

Classic Video Games Stamps Sheet

I could see this framed on the wall and that would be pleasing. (But then I see the stacks of things that are framed and not hung around the house.) / via Laughing Squid

wearedorothy.com

Stamps with abstract representations of 42 videogames

Doug Wilson catalogs his library

From the shelving, organization, labelling and cataloging — an inspiration for anyone who appreciates everything in its right place, and accessible to share.

realdougwilson.com

Bookshelves

Drift Hotels

With locations in San José del Cabo, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and Nashville soon, these hotels look zen. / via Naz

drifthotels.co

Drift hotel in Palm Springs

Naz Hamid’s personal website

For a long time this domain linked to other online homes for Naz. During the pandemic it started to evolve. Now it is a new destination unto itself. Thoughtful details abound.

nazhamid.com

Naz Hamid’s home page

March 20, 2023

Mashing up Star Wars ships with old aircraft in Lego

Jordan Fridal has quite the knack.

instagram.com

X-51 Mustang Lego Mashup

A bearded dude in an orange hat

The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation is clapping back in support of their emblem on social media. Some chuckles in the replies / via Brand New

twitter.com

Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation emblem

March 19, 2023

Public Announcement

Brand consultancy and media company with a homepage chock full of links and some fine keyboard navigation throughout. Their website is part zine, art project, commentary and probably a few other things I haven’t figured out yet. Fun!

publicannouncement.org

Public Announcement written on a tennis ball

Borrow Trouble

New music video by Feist has some Michel Gondry vibes. Dig. / via Public Annoucement

youtu.be

Feist grab from music video

(Almost) every music video of Michel Gondry

I loved the 2003 Director Series DVD of Gondry’s work. This YouTube playlist adds in oodles of more recent music videos. Also recommended: The series Kidding with Jim Carrey (with 8 episodes directed by Gondry).

youtube.com

Meg White on drums. Still from The Hardest Button to Button music video

Simple Type Co.

Dan Cederholm launched a new site that brought together his fonts and goods. He keeps adding to it with updates, samples and enthusiasm.

simpletype.co

Easy Coast font specimen sample

Maybe drone delivery will really be a thing

Actually, it already is. This video is a fine use of twenty minutes and as JP says, “makes me feel a bit more optimistic about the future.”

youtu.be

Zipline drone delivery thing

March 15, 2023

MonoLisa monospace font

Designed to ease staring at it for long stretches of time with bonus script (fancy italic) version / via Trevor Morris

monolisa.dev

MonoLisa monospace font sample

March 14, 2023

What Aegir made in 2022

So many lovely expressions of form, experiments, mediums, and results. (Including the food, which sometimes is the most I can make in a day.)

aegir.org

A wooden pineapple thing in front of geometric square pattern

Merlin’s Wisdom, cont.

“If you can't be a good example, at least try to become an interesting cautionary tale.” Merlin moves his wisdom but keeps adding to it. Re-linking as I’m writing a list to my future self (WIP).

github.com

A Github header for bits of wisdom that Merlin Mann has collected

Jason Kottke’s website is 25 years old

It’s a bright spot on the internet.

kottke.org

A photograph of a young man at a computer

March 6, 2023

Designing Women

An enlightenment project exploring the impact of women in design. I particularly enjoyed all the profiles. Just digging into the resources. / via Daniel Benneworth-Gray’s Meanwhile newsletter

designingwomen.readymag.com

Geometric shapes form a square on the cover of a Herman Miller publication

Line Dings

MetaFilter’s free thread had a link to this font of glyphs that forms borders and patterns that lock up quite nicely.

dafont.com

A wingding font that makes border patterns

NOS poster by Senyor Estudi

A drawing with hundreds of people gathered, forming the word NOS (“us” in Catalan), a poster for the fight against cancer. More info: Never Give Up

fontsinuse.com

The letters US formed from drawings of people

March 1, 2023

Ansel Adams Lego concept

Reddit user LobsterThermidor calls this “The Landscape Photographer”. I’d dig seeing a Lego series like this, with artists in their element/studio over recreating just their works.

reddit.com

Ansel Adams Lego concept

The Funny Pages in Modern Times

David Friedman missed the funny pages. So he used ChatGPT to work through coding up a tool to select and deliver the dailies through a page generated by RSS feeds. One of the best uses of AI I’ve seen yet.

ironicsans.substack.com

Auto generated comics HTML page

February 28, 2023

Craig Mod on walking Zelda

and growing up, folks that inform your journey and ways that video games can inspire futures...

craigmod.com

Screencap of Link looking out across Hyrule in Breath of the Wild game on Nintendo Switch

February 27, 2023

Vulf Stuff

Vulfpeck made their merch Open Source—anyone can make goods and split the profits with the band (details). Andrew Neyer ran with it with delightful results.

andrewneyer.com

Hockey Puck that reads Vulf

February 26, 2023

Poline

Esoteric Color Palette Generator that “harnesses mystical witchcraft” by David Aerne. Scroll down for options and the extra nice color naming. / via Dan Burzo

meodai.github.io

Color wheel with 5 selections along an axis

February 23, 2023

Trying patch

Dan Sinker wrote about trying. He’s now made a patch to remind himself to do so.

dansinker.com

A patch that reads TRYING

Anish Kapoor sculpture squashed under New York skyscraper

Akin to his Cloud Gate (”Bean”) in Chicago, the as yet to be named blob is quite lovely and I hope to see it in NYC.

dezeen.com

Blobby mirrored sculpture at base of skyscraper

February 22, 2023

Save SVGs extension

Oh my word I didn't know this browser extension existed. I’m often trying to track down SVG logos and stuff for companies. It's Chrome based, so it works with Arc!

svgexport.io

SVG art of a fingerprint

February 20, 2023

A new model: Private equity and employee ownership

Saw this on Sunday Morning and it was heartwarming. I’d fathom there’s an untold side of the story where the private equity firm is making oodles, but to see employees get some benefit is wonderful.

youtu.be

CBS Sunday Morning sun graphic

Jason Forrest’s career chart

Followed the path to Jason’s site from the Eames quotes and I can get lost for days on his personal site. The career chart on his about / contact page offers a snapshot of his work and passions—a lovely bit of visualization.

jasonforrestftw.com

Career chart by Jason Forrest

Charles Eames on design

“Design as a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose.” Jason Forrest calls out a few other choice tidbits from this Design Q&A video with Eames. / via DJ

uxdesign.cc

Eames stuff

February 19, 2023

Diaries of Note

Shaun Usher (Letters of Note) started this new project in January. My first visit was this excellent entry about science and art by Raymond Chandler.

diariesofnote.com

Diaries of Note

February 17, 2023

Unordered, incomplete list of things I want from a job

Lynn Fisher outlines a dream job. / via Guy

lynnandtonic.com

Illustration of a laptop displaying "Hello World" and a glass with a portrait of a Lynn Fisher

February 16, 2023

Bottles of Veuve Clicquot

Justin Duke made a deal with his partner “to celebrate things we’re particularly proud of with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.” And then he documents each moment. I really love this idea. (Plus also? There’s an RSS feed.)

arcana.computer

A bottle of champagne

February 14, 2023

Casserole

OHno Type Co’s revival of Davida is joyous.

ohnotype.co

Casserole type

February 12, 2023

Valentine Moon Pie packaging

I dig that the box for these can be cut up into 10 individual Valentine cards. / via Brand New’s Friday Likes

studiocarnley.com

Strawberry Moon Pie packaging for Valentine’s Day

February 9, 2023

Retro bass

Base lines from classic video games. Here they are pulled together in an extended song.

yewknee.com

Diagrams of bass lines

February 8, 2023

Tidy Reader

“A simple bookmarklet to tidy up articles for easy reading” and OMG IT’S AWESOME

stephanango.com

Tidy Reader

February 7, 2023

Pat Kim x Hanji Edition

This moiré woodcut print is enchanting. (Watch the short video) / via Scott Boms

hanjiedition.com

Moiré woodblock print

February 6, 2023

My Favourite Computer, An Old Mac

“I can tell it my thoughts and my secrets without wondering if it's going to share them with others, or with corporations.” – Connor Oliver / via Daring Fireball

muezza.ca

Bitmapped photograph of a Macintosh Classic II and a black cat

Remove backgrounds in macOS

I knew this was a part of iOS but didn’t realize it was a contextual menu away on the Mac. Thanks Christian Heilmann!

christianheilmann.com

Remove background command in macOS

February 4, 2023

Adobe adds photogrammetry tools

Turn still photos (from phone or camera) into 3D models with automatic subject masking and texture mapping. (Wikipedia on Photogrammetry)

jnack.com

3D photo setup

February 3, 2023

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Titles

These end credits are so delightful, I watched them every time. It's neat to read this discussion with the folks behind them and their process. Bonus portrait of Prince by Kagan McLeod.

artofthetitle.com

Illustration of She Hulk

February 2, 2023

The 2023 Type Trends Report by Monotype

There are waves of vibe that crash into our visual shores through type. Monotype always collects keen perspectives for a surf report. / via Brand New

monotype.com

Type Trends Report 2023

The Creative Act: A Way of Being

I invariably love or really appreciate most things Rick Rubin has produced. Reading his insights on creativity and life sounds like something good for the soul. Will report back. (Sidenote: Did you know Uncrate has a store. Look at this pencil sharpener!)

uncrate.com

Rick Rubin book "The Creative Act: A Way of Being"

February 1, 2023

Methodology meals

Fully cooked, portion controlled and healthy. Dag I wish we had this sort of thing in Cincinnati. (SF & SoCal only at this point.)

gomethodology.com

Food in jars

Cat flyer for kindness

Brad Montague made a flyer with a cat. It’s invitation to step out and do something for someone else (and available to download and print).

montagueworkshop.com

HELP! Cat poster with tabs to pull off with things you can do to brighten someone's day

Haystack

Limited edition prints by artists from around the world. A favorite design element is when you click into a detail view and the page pulls colors from the artwork. / via Fonts in Use

haystackart.com

Haystack print by Dion Johnson

January 31, 2023

Correct the Internet

Due to human bias, search engines have learnt to prioritize sportsmen in search results, even when the facts put sportswomen first. This site was created to inspire change.

correcttheinternet.com

Correct the Internet

January 27, 2023

AI-generated code helps learning and experimentation

Outside of image generation and prose, it's interesting to understand a coding workflow. Matt Webb has thoughts and shares some insight and throws some bonus footnotes about language models. I particularly like this application angle to “parse intent instead of nouns”

interconnected.org

AI-generated code helps me learn and makes experimenting faster

Ivory for iOS

A Mastodon app by Tapbots that leaps over the current experience on Twitter. Also enjoying the Ice Cubes app by Thomas Ricouard

tapbots.com

An elephant peering cautiously behind a computer

January 25, 2023

OH no Type Co Reels

James Edmondson makes learning about typography superdooper fun. I've been learning lots about type history and usage from his reels. (Ugh. Instagram. But still!)

instagram.com

What about the Friz?

Frank Lloyd Wright Racine Collection

Steelcase is opening up orders on a line of desks and chairs re-imagined from Frank Lloyd Wright designs. On all my trips to FLW places, furniture was scaled for shorter folks and frankly, not comfortable. The pieces are not boring though.

store.steelcase.com

Steelcase Frank Lloyd Wright desk and chair

Unsung Heroes

Here’s a great place to dive into Scott Bom’s personal website that has the best buckets of navigation and a fresh coat of paint. Be sure to delve into Documenting for a stream of inspiration and type releases. (But all sections are filled with goodness)

scottboms.com

Screen printed posters with folks that change the world

January 24, 2023

Smith & Diction’s Pitch Deck

All wrapped up nicely in a Figma presentation with tangent links to moodboards and samples.

figma.com

Smith & Diction's design process chart that includes logo, colors, type, messaging, brandwork and styleguide